Thursday, March 8, 2018

(Dis) Missing Deacons

One of the problems of setting Churches on a firm foundation, for me -- at the beginning of a ministry -- was missing deacons. They didn’t turn up for meetings. Again and again, we couldn’t obtain a quorum. We could have all gone home -- but we took decisions anyway, and held them over to another meeting for ratification. But one couldn’t run a Church like that. What to do? In one Church, I took it to the Church Meeting (a gathering of all the members), and asked them to back me up. And they did -- granting me authority to dismiss deacons for non-attendance if they tendered no apology. The members’ resolution was displayed on my vestry wall for years -- until the wall-paper was replaced. OBSERVATION: A Church means business, and can’t be hampered by uncommitted office-bearers. At the same time, there are some simple techniques which help faithfulness along.

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